Aardvark, Kangaroo, Rhinoceros
by ppieaui
Summary: Foreman and Chase work on a case in new surroundings. ForemanChase. And that is slash. In case you didn't know.
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

The air pressed wet against his skin, thick with waiting rain, and a distant sky rumbled its restlessness.

Robert watched the absurdly scenic view of a darkened, storm heavy skyline, an ocean just beginning to rock with rising winds, through his feet. it was too humid for such a strenuous task as scooting his chair any closer, but his ankles just made it to the balcony if he stretched.

Beside him sat his mother, her feet propped up as well, but she sat elegantly, smiling softly. She noticed her son watching, and made a show of breathing in deeply. "I'd bet five more minutes," she said. "Before it starts pouring."

He didn't say anything, turning his gaze to his own feet, shifted a bit, and compared them to his mother's; they were nearly the same size now. It was hard not to think of how it'd been nearly two years since they'd last storm watched, nearly two years since his mother had been coherent enough, sober enough, during a storm to follow him out there. His feet had been much smaller then.

But that was depressing, and Robert was determined not spoil this moment, not to send her back inside, to hole up in her room, in a fit of guilt.

"You're thinking too hard, you'll get wrinkles if you keep it up," she said abruptly, reaching over and smoothing the lines made by his drawn down eyebrows, "Oh Robbie, look at you," she sighed, her hand moving to his cheek and resting there. Robert stared back, fidgeting. There was a time when sitting and talking with his mother had been natural, but that time had paled and faded in the face of drunken, rambling screams and fits. They'd grown apart, and now meeting her stare was awkward. Off. "You aren't planning on becoming a man anytime soon, are you?"

He smirked hesitantly, "I did my best to keep it from you"

"You knew full well I'd put a stop to this whole growing up business," she said, all seriousness, leaning back as the first bits of rain began to fall. For a moment, a dark cloud lit with distant lightning. "Going behind my back, how bad."

"You'll forgive me one day."

"I suppose. I just wish I'd seen it coming is all. All mothers say that don't they? But," she sighed. "I wish I'd been watching closer. Soon there'll be girls, right? And cars and shaving and sorts of independence business," Robert didn't tell her that there had already been girls, and he'd been driving Peter's Bentley since it'd been bought. "Are you sure I can't talk you out of all this becoming a man nonsense?"

"Sorry, my mind is made up. I've already made plans to turn sixteen these year."

"Heartless," she declared, tilting her head back. His mother was the prettiest woman in the world, amazing when she tried to be, but especially when she didn't. Her gold hair was up in a sloppy bun, sunglasses entirely too large on her face and a wide brimmed sunhat that would no doubt be blown off her head the moment the wind picked up, and anyone else would've looked like they were wrapping up, hiding. She looked glamorous, mysterious, even in her sweatpants and T-shirt, and for once, a sober smile.

Although it was hard to tell, with her. She was so incredibly charismatic, it took more than a few drinks to take that away. When she'd gone too far, though, it was a sharp fall into crudeness and incoherency.

"It's got to start any moment now," she said, sounding remarkably sure for someone who had no noticeable control over the weather. "If the storms way out there and it's nothing but rain, won't that be a gyp?"

The beach, ocean and the two watching turned white for as long as it took a sudden streak of lightning to race across the sky, and a moment later a brilliant, heart stuttering crack made Robert's chair quiver, just a bit.

"See?" she laughed, over the sound of the abrupt rainfall. Robert watched her smile, and allowed a small tingle of hope to stir in his chest; it could be different, now, with both of them, if he just tried hard enough, he could make her better. If he could just keep her smiling, she wouldn't _want_ to drink, and he could do that, if he tried.

And there was Robert's problem, he was always blindly believing that, eventually, there would be a happy end.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part A:**

_You touched me_

Chase was warm. Abnormally warm, but Eric Foreman knew this was nothing to be concerned about. Some people are just warmer than others, and Chase happened to be one.

This only made the non-problem of Chase-being-warm worse. Not because Foreman was hoping for Chase to come down with something, but because he _knew_ it wasn't a problem, without a word being spoken.

_You touched me, you liked it_

He had previous knowledge, knowledge that he had no business knowing, knowledge he shouldn't, _wouldn't_ know, and every shuffle of Chase's unnaturally warm arm made against his own was a maddening reminder: _You touched me, you liked it and now you're thinking about touching me again._

There was nothing to be done, though, personal space was a laughable concept in economy class, signed away the moment the airline ticket was purchased, along with any sense of privacy or dignity. He could curl into himself, but he imagined that would only bring attention to his discomfort and the last thing he wanted was Chase thinking about him thinking about his warm-non-problem. He could shift to the side, but that would jostle the third person in their row, a young Asian boy who had been decent enough to slip on headphones and sleep, and Foreman really didn't want to risk that changing.

_You touched me_

Normal people, Foreman thought, wouldn't have this problem. As evidenced by the great majority that had drifted off when the cabin's lights dimmed; normal people took advantage of a darkness to sleep. Foreman got to sit in the dark and wish for a normal-heated companion, one that would do the same, instead of occupying himself with utterly meaningless tasks, all ones that required light; crosswords, sudokus, word searches.

_you liked it_

Chase then spent a near hour alternating between making a pen twirl between his fingers and folding, then ripping a napkin pressed with the airline's logo. If Foreman had wanted an ever growing pile of tiny, white squares he probably would've been enthusiastic. He didn't, though, and found his irritation growing until he was personally affronted by each new rip.

"Are you going to be done any time soon?" he decided to ask Chase, because even in that tone, it was better than demanding he turn his light off.

He raised his eyebrows, sweeping the delicate fruits of his pointless labor into a neat pile at the center of his tray. "I thought you said you didn't sleep during flights," he muttered, but reached upward and switched his light off anyway. 

They sat for a moment in the dark, Foreman shifting into a more sleepable position. A flight attendant coughed into his fist as he walked by, and Chase leaned back with a sigh, their shoulders brushing.

_You touched me, it felt good, you liked it_

Foreman reached up, flicking the light back on. "How can you not be bored?"

He blinked in the sudden light, then shrugged, looking mildly amused. "I've made this trip before."

Foreman stared at Chase, watched in the meager light as he leaned back in his seat and molested his pen for no discernible reason while he stared back, because it was, sadly, the most interesting thing happening in his visual range.

The next movie wasn't showing for another six hours and they'd both finished off the books they'd brought along about an hour after take off. The agreement to trade off only made sense; if Foreman had known, however, that Chase would to be nothing but amused by _My Soul Has Grown Deep_, he wouldn't've bothered. Instead he waited until the sixth snort to rip it out of the blond's hands, tucking it away into the safety of his duffle bag. Because the only thing worse than having someone not laugh at something that was supposed to be funny was having them laugh at something that was serious.

It was only reasonable then, that Chase had denied him his own book, _The Gun Seller_, which was surprisingly addictive and now taunting Foreman from the pocket of a leather jacket sitting in Chase's lap.

"Think we should review the case?" Foreman offered blandly, combing his mind to remember the details. There weren't many; all Chase had let on in Jersey, at least to Foreman and Cameron, was something about a relation named Peter whose situation was too unstable for him to be moved.

"Not particularly," he muttered, suddenly quite surly as he stared out the window. Obviously the blackened sky would provide better company that Foreman could ever hope to.

"So it was important enough to convince House to let you drag _me_ halfway across the globe to help, but not worth discussing along the way?"

He just shrugged, shoving the pen back in his mouth and Foreman rolled his eyes.

It wasn't the fact that Chase had idiosyncrasies that got to him; it was the fact that he had _so_ damn many and no one cared. He twitched, he slumped, he chewed on things, rarely made eye contact, and still, somehow, worked under the top diagnostician in North America. Foreman had invested in prep courses, read books on proper interview etiquette, gone to seminars. Chase didn't even know his primary colors, if his orange tie and pink-tinted shirt was any indication. And they worked the same job.

Chase hadn't even stood when Foreman was first introduced as his coworker. _Common sense_ sites eye contact, firm handshake and a repeating of the person's first and last name as the _minimum_ for such a formal environment. After a strong, friendly handshake from Cameron, Foreman turned to see Chase smile broadly from behind a crossword, like he knew some great secret and it was _hilarious_, twirl a pen between his teeth and say, "Welcome aboard!"

Foreman had actually assumed Chase was Cameron's visiting boyfriend until he shrugged on a lab coat before leaving the office.

"Why not Cameron?" Foreman asked suddenly.

"What?"

"House said you could bring either of us along. Why me, why not Cameron?"

Chase looked amused. "And who would you pick? Between me and her?"

Foreman shifted; the smart thing to do would be to take the fact that he was the obvious choice and let it die, but it wasn't like there was any better way to waste their time. "Cameron is a great doctor."

"When she wants to be, yeah," he said with entirely too much superiority. "But I don't want her finding out Peter used to run over kittens or something and holding back treatment until he apologizes."

"That's not fair," Foreman said, irritated by the haughty tone. "She does her job."

"Being fair to Cameron isn't a pressing concern of mine right now," Chase said, flatly. "And I didn't want to bring someone who only does her job when it makes her feel good."

"Cameron does what she thinks is right; you just do what you're told. Which do think is going to make a better doctor in the long run?" Foreman asked.

"It also makes her someone I don't want taking care of my family," Chase returned in the same, short tone. "I'll give her a ring in twenty years if I need a hand."

Foreman rolled his eyes and turned back to the much less idiotic sleeping Asian boy.

It wasn't that Foreman thought Chase was a horrible doctor, and most days he found the red ties and yellow shirts more amusing than anything else; but it was always there, licking at the back of his mind. Chase was the one thing that had been drummed into Foreman's head he _couldn't_ be, since he told his high school guidance counselor he might want to go into medicine: nothing more and nothing less than a good doctor. He would have to do more than his job, he'd been told. He had to be polished, he had to act the part before they'd ever give him the role. There are tons of gifted people out there, to become something great, a man has to work on his presentation.

He would bet money Chase had never heard anything remotely resembling that speech, or anything about work ethic. It was as though he went for a walk one day, wandered into PPTH, decided he wanted to be a doctor, camped out House's office, refused to leave, and House was just too lazy to make him go.

Foreman had it all together. Foreman knew the right people and went to the right places, while Chase straddled the line of mysteriously standoffish and antisocial asshole, ignored everyone but House and did whatever it was he liked with his spare time. Drawing hearts around a picture of House, maybe. And still, at conferences with west coast teams, Chase got a warm, welcoming handshake from various experts from various fields, while Foreman got a cool nod. It was maddening, and _no one's_ father is famous enough to excuse that.

Still. He had a point; if it was his family on the line, at the moment, Chase would be much higher up on the list than Cameron, and he guessed that said something.

Seriously though -- as if there were some _I Came From a Rich Family, Too_ handshake, some club that Foreman would never, ever be able to enter and never be given the chance of understanding.

It was something Foreman had accepted years ago, and he wasn't sure what it was in _Chase_ that brought it out so strongly; his most petty and childish reactions. Why, when the mood hit, admitting Chase was right left such a nasty taste in his mouth. He'd worked with nastier, ruder people without flinching, and even if the Australian _hadn't_ worked as hard as Foreman, or Cameron, or anyone else in the hospital to get there, that didn't make him any worse than them.

There was certainly no way to rationalize that stab of irritation that never failed to hit whenever he looked up to see Chase slumping lazily on House's couch, while they waited for test results. The fact that there was really nothing else to be expected of him didn't the elevate his annoyance, or the urge to roll his eyes every time the sunlight in House's office turned blond hair gold, or how, on especially terse days he wanted to spit out, "It's _Fo_re_man_," every time it got butchered to _Fohmin_.

_You touched me_

Chase brought out too much, for whatever reason. Foreman preferred indifference to hate and anger; those had no place in a workplace and he did his best to be a professional acting out his profession. He wasn't obsessed like House, or protective like Cameron, or attached like Chase. He did his job, the end. Chase brought out too much, even before that night, so in retrospect, he was probably the worst person to make a mistake with.

Anyone else, and the details would already be fading, he was sure. Not dancing at the corner of his eye, creeping up every time he dropped his guard.

Foreman, determinedly, did not indulge in the details.

_You liked it, it felt good_

Foreman, with a sigh, indulged in the details.

They'd been at a conference, Cameron had been working up nerve to introduce herself to Dr. Stone ("_Oh be quiet, he does _not _look like House!_") for an hour before dragging him off to her room, while Cuddy, Wilson and House reminisced on a level the rest of them couldn't dream of reaching without ten more years of history. That left Foreman and Chase to raid the bar.

Which they had.

Enthusiastically.

That, dictated by all the laws of proper storytelling, led to other things. Fingers growing clumsy and wet with spilled alcohol and what doctor _sucked_ his fingers clean instead of using a napkin? The same sort that doesn't protest when he's getting dragged into Foreman's hotel room, the sort that suck at wrestling and have extremely ticklish inner thighs.

They'd been too drunk to figure out the complexities of buttons and zippers, but if Foreman's memory hadn't failed him -- and that was a pretty big if -- they'd found a pleasant enough way to get off, rubbing and fumbling, Chase worshiping Foreman's neck sloppily, and the tremendous sense of accomplishment as he made Chase tremble and come beneath him had gotten Foreman off almost immediately.

It was only after the heady rush of pleasure had faded enough for his mind to form coherent thought, after they were breathing calmly and their bodies cooled that he realized exactly what he'd been after, why he'd been so desperate to drag Chase to the ground. He'd been trying to prove an obscure point; one that he never would've brought up if he hadn't been drunk, one that he normally let speak for itself.

He shouldn't have let House's constant belittling get to him, but he did, and who was better to feel the brunt of his need to prove superiority than the Australian House Jr.? It'd been a contest to see who was better, to see who would submit first, who was dominate, one that he'd won with very little protest.

Chase didn't seem aware of any of that though, actually laughing groggily when he woke the next morning. "Oops," he'd snorted, and sat up, buttoning his shirt as best he could with three missing buttons. He left for his own room, and life continued on in his world, the only place where a man could sleep with both his coworkers and somehow keep a perfectly functional work environment without batting an eye.

Foreman would've been sure he'd suffered spontaneous memory loss, but no, it'd been just as easy for him to carry on after Cameron. As if they'd done nothing more than a rousing game of checkers. He didn't even have a smug air of a won conquest, or any rueful bitterness that was expected of a one night stand; because everyone always _says_ it means nothing, but there was always something. . . . except with Chase. It was boggling. Foreman wondered if he just slept with whoever he could whenever he got the chance, and the idea disturbed him entire too much, because it disturbed him at all.

"Alright then, let's play a game." Chase's voice was a violent jerk to the present, and he knew he had to've been staring back guiltily, as his mind had suddenly, and quite horrifically, decided to replay the throaty gasp Chase pressed against his shoulder as he came, and didn't show any signs of stopping.

"Huh?" Foreman croaked out.

"A game. A two year old male, sudden slurring, poor muscle control and mood swings."

He forced his mind to clear. "Any head injury?"

"Nope," Chase said, smirking around that god damned pen.

"Any relevant family history?"

"They say they're clean."

Foreman frowned; "Are they?"

"That's cheating."

"How?" 

"You wouldn't know for sure if you were there unless you were psychic," Chase said simply. "And in my game you're not psychic."

"You've been around House too long," Foreman said. "SDS?"

Chase looked confused more than unimpressed, "a _two_ year old."

"I've seen stranger things."

"Not this time," he said, as if he were humoring Foreman.

"Ataxia." Wild stabs in the dark never hurt anyone.

"_Not_ stranger."

"Ataxia is not as strange as SDS."

Chase rolled his eyes. "The MRI comes back squeaky clean."

"I managed to get a two year old still enough for one without a sedative?" Foreman said with exaggerated surprise. "I thought you said I didn't have any supernatural abilities."

"You get one," Chase allowed. "The ability to wait until a fictional child is asleep to perform an MRI."

Foreman let the fact that allowing someone with a potential head injury sleep was unheard of drop, "what's the white cell count?"

"Slightly elevated, but he has a cold."

"Is the cold related?"

"I don't know, is it?"

Foreman sighed. "Alright, I give him chicken soup and wait a night."

"The symptoms disappear," Chase said, nodding. "Good job."

Foreman stared; "it _was_ related to the fever?"

"Not at all," he said.

"So treatment for a common cold is the cure for three serious neurological problems?"

"Not normally, I don't imagine," Chase said, looking terribly pleased with himself.

"What was it?"

"You'll kick yourself when you figure it out."

"You're not going to tell me?" Foreman asked.

Chase cocked his head to the side as he debated. "I'll answer yes and no questions."

"Was it an infection?"

"Nope."

"A progressive disease?" Foreman asked.

"That chicken soup cured?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You're making this up, aren't you?"

"I was there when it happened."

"I thought you said it was a fictional kid."

"It's based off a kid who had those symptoms, whose MRI would've come back clean."

"And you were there. You didn't just hear this from someone else?"

"Wouldn't matter if I had, it's not like I made up a fake disease. You'll recognize what caused the symptoms as soon as you figure it out."

"What caused the symptoms," Foreman repeated. "So all it did was mimic symptoms, it wasn't an actual disease."

"Well, every disease 'just' causes symptoms."

"No, symptoms are the side-effect of the actual disease."

"Yeah, if diseases were actual sentient beings with actual goals in mind," he said, rolling his eyes. "Diseases enter a body and muck it up, creating symptoms." 

"A window breaking is a _symptom_ of a rock hitting it, not the actual rock. It's two separate things."

"I never said they weren't. I'm saying A happens because of B and it's pointless to separate the two."

"Pointless if A always caused B and B always happened because of A --"

"And they do," Chase sounded remarkably close to irritation, "It's just sometimes B sometimes _looks_ like C and--"

"The same problem rarely ever presents the exact same way twice."

"They _always_ present the exact same way. It's the person that it's presenting in that's the variable, the way each body fights A off changes how A shows up. It's not like diseases change their tactics for each new person."

Foreman stared at Chase, wondering if he had managed to hide his extreme and utter stupidity until this moment, or if this was a sudden assault. "Diseases are _constantly_ changed by their environment, they get stronger or weaker--"

"But the disease will _always_ try to do what it _always_ does--"

"Chase."

"What?" Chase asked, sharply.

"We're splitting hairs," Foreman said calmly. "And waking people up."

Chase blinked, glanced around and the slowly stirring bodies in the plane, and a rueful smile spread up the side of his face as he eased back into his chair. "At least we killed," he glanced at his watch, "two minutes."

"That's it?" Foreman's shoulders slumped just slightly. "Time flies when you're having fun."

"And crawls when you're bored out of your mind."

"I thought you weren't bored."

"I wasn't," Chase said. "You distracted me."

"From ripping napkins."

"Better than watching you stare at my lap."

"I wasn't --" Foreman sputtered, having just tore his gaze away from the book Chase was giving no indication of sharing any time soon.

Chase wasn't listening to his feeble protest anymore though, which was good because Foreman wasn't sure how he was going to end them. "When's the movie?" he asked idly, now attempting to make the poor, victimized pen twirl on his tray.

"A while."

Chase gave up on making his pen dance and was now trying to balance it on his upper lip. After eleven or twelve tries, he stopped with a sigh.

"We could always argue some more," he suggested.

"I know this is going to sound crazy, but we could just talk."

"And do you have a topic in mind, _Eric_?" It was said lightly, but the way he pronounced _Eric_ was oddly clipped, like it was a word in another language that he didn't know the meaning to; he was just mimicking a sound.

"I'm not sure, _Robert_," Foreman said, wondering if the name sounded just as foreign on his tongue. "Odds are we have something in common that's not medically related."

Chase appeared to be thinking, gathering his bits of napkin into an open palm and shoving them into a pocket. "Ever been rock climbing?" he asked, idly.

"No. Watch basketball?"

"Not especially. Snowboarding? Skiing?"

"Nope. Football?"

"The American massacre, or actual game?"

"No would've sufficed," Foreman glowered slightly. "Seen any good movies?"

Chase snorted, "No, but about how this lovely weather we've been having?"

"It's dead winter back in Jersey," Foreman said, and by the other's unimpressed stare, had clearly missed a great joke.

They stared each other for a moment, and the silence that stretched between them was awkward and stuffy. A body a row ahead of them shifted in sleep.

"I think we've beat the odds," Chase said, finally.

"Looks that way," Foreman said, although he was sure they shared some common ground, even if he had no idea how to get there. Chase wasn't interested in giving any directions, though, turning his gaze to his fingernails and no doubt thinking very deep thoughts.

Eventually the person seated in front of Foreman woke and stood, obviously dizzy for a moment in sleep, then shuffled off to the bathroom. She was on her way back by the time Foreman was bored enough to try and instigate conversation again.

"Alright," Foreman said. "During my residency in California, I was on the night shift in the E.R. when this woman came in, suffering from intense cramping. I do a pelvic exam and find this massive infection and swelling."

Chase winced, "charming."

"Really. She was clean, though, for every test I could think of," he said. "Finally the x-rays come back in and there's this huge obstruction."

"What, a tumor?"

"A sock."

Chase glanced to the side, then back. "Say again?"

"She'd shoved a sock up there and forgot about it."

He looked horrified, opening his mouth twice before settling on, "how long had it been up there?"

"Five weeks? It wasn't in a good shape, and when I pulled it out, started breaking apart," he said. Chase stared instead of laughed, and Foreman noticed the blond's tight grip on the armrests. "Come on, having a residency in Jersey had to've been just as bad."

"Actually, it was in Maine. And no. I spent most of my time doing paperwork."

"How'd you get in your hours?"

"I lied because it was boring as hell and the attending lied because I was crap at paperwork and he wanted me out of there."

Foreman stared at the smile that he guessed was supposed to be charming, calculating all the ways that was illegal. "Have you done _any_thing to deserve where you are now?"

"Probably not according to your standards," Chase said, plainly showing what he thought of such standards with the off-hand tone. Foreman wondered if the ability to remind a person why you were unbearable in a single sentence was something he'd picked up from House, or just one that the bastard had helped polish.

After another moment of their most awkward silence yet, which was really saying something, Chase sniffed, reached forward and pulled his headset out of the seat in front of him, and plugged it in.

The rest of the cabin was quiet enough that Foreman could make out faint bars of '_Hakuna Mattata_' before Chase slipped the headphones on, singling the apparent end of their conversation.

Foreman rolled his eyes, unsure if the rudeness was intentional or if Chase was just that dense.

A weight dropped abruptly in his lap, and Foreman glanced down to see the cover of _The Gun Seller_ staring back up at him.

Chase continued to stare resolutely out the window, though, giving no indication he was still aware of Foreman's presence.

He sighed, paging through the novel to find the passage he'd left off on, resolutely not noticing the loss of warmth against his side now that Chase had shifted away and crossed his arms.

There hadn't been much more conversation beyond a mumbled 'excuse me' by the time they flew over Sydney, which looked disappointingly like almost every other moderately populated city in America. The buildings were sleeping giants, pressed against the steadily darkening sky, spaced farther apart than the ones in most cities like Jersey or New York, and probably not as tall, but for some reason the city gave of the sense of strength, importance. Instead of millions crammed in and scurrying about, it looked steady, obviously not in need of that many people to thrive.

Chase had fallen asleep sometime between _The Stapler_ and _101 Dalmatians_, and wasn't very pleased about waking, glaring and groggy as they touched down. If he'd been up to it, Foreman would made a joke about crankiness and naps, but the only thing he was up for was getting off the plane and onto solid ground, and then, hopefully, onto a solid mattress with some solid pillows and blankets.

They disembarked without much preamble, and Foreman was led through the airport with the speed and grace of a sleepwalker. Chase knew where he was heading, but he was sure they would've been lost if he hadn't traced the same path so many times before.

Chase wasn't any different in his homeland, didn't look particularly happy to be there, and Foreman supposed it was foolish to expect a lighter step, for him to move with more confidence. The man left the island for a reason, one that probably hadn't changed.

There was no argument over who was going to drive the rental car, although it was probably the single most bizarre sensation Foreman had ever felt, to sit in the driver's side, but not. Chase didn't even wake up, really, for the drive to the hotel, and the combination of being on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, with a driver that was too tired to communicate in anything more than grunts made for a very lively drive.

In fact, the only time Foreman was _sure_ Chase had fully woken was when they'd actually walked inside the hotel and discovered a very nasty shock.

"Check again."

"Repetition with expectation of different results," Foreman muttered, while the man with 'Tom' written on a plastic tag on his chest sighed, complying with Chase's pointless demand with fast, curt keystrokes.

"What?"

"The definition of insanity."

Chase didn't quite glare, but his eyes were narrow and almost accusing. Like a parent; he almost expected him to hiss, '_you_ know _better than that!_'

"I apologize sir, but there are still no reservations under either of those names," Tom said, a shrug his only explanation, and once again Foreman had to quell the ridiculous urge to inform Chase that hey, Tom had an Australian accent, too!

"House got the rooms?" Foreman asked.

"He said he would, but I'd bet Cameron took care of it," he said, the exhaustion slurring his words into just one, miserable mumble.

"Check under wombat," Foreman said.

Chase perked up, "or spade."

"Or blondie."

"He's never called me blondie," Chase said, brow creasing.

"To your face," Foreman said. "Anything?"

"Not under those names. Although," Tom said, eyes brightening suddenly, "there was a message phoned in for Gidget and . . . Moondoggie?"

"That's us," Foreman said, and quelled Chase's baffled look with a muttered, "you don't want to know."

Tom fumbled a bit with something under the counter, pulled out a folded sheet of paper. "And whatever your friend said nearly made our day clerk cry."

Chase nabbed the paper and read it over, but whatever he found was enough to make him freeze, his hand slowly drifting to his forehead, as if blocking off an impending headache.

"What?" Foreman asked.

The message slid wordlessly across the counter.

_Sorry, but Sci-Fi geeks nabbed all the rooms under five thousand a night (that's still a shit load in American), and we just don't love you enough for that. Have fun under the stars of the outback!  
-- xoxoxox House_

"I don't suppose five thousand in American is doable?"

"It's about four thousand. Give or take a few hundred," Chase said weakly. "Up to splitting?"

"I'm not spending two thousand a night unless the room's coming back with me."

"I don't think you can -- " Tom's protest was cut short by two dark glares, and he shuffled about five feet away to a stool, proceeding to pretending he couldn't see or hear them anymore now that he had his back to them.

Chase's sigh was so pitiful, for a moment Foreman thought he was going to suggest just camping out in the lobby. "What's the plan, then?" he asked instead.

"I kind of assumed this was your show."

"Right," he sighed, and moved his duffle bag onto his shoulder with one great heave. "Back to the car."

The rental's engine was ridiculously quiet, and neither bothered themselves with switching on the radio, so the ride to wherever it was they were going was done in relative silence. Thankfully, Chase seemed more aware for this drive, although it amounted to the same level of safety as their first trip, what with the steadily narrowing, and poorly lit street. Slowly buildings became freckled with trees, then trees were freckled with buildings. Any manmade object would've been a startling sight by the time the abrupt right came, surprising them both.

"Where are we headed?" Foreman asked, when it looked more and more likely that hew as simply taking House's advice, driving aimlessly into the outback.

He stiffened, and Foreman wondered if he'd forgotten he wasn't taking this trip alone. "My old place."

He glanced around; it certainly didn't seem like they were headed toward any housing district.

He was about to say so when, abruptly, a large building popped out of the horizon, huge and square and very out of place on the flat landscape. It took a moment for Foreman to realize that immense block was Chase's 'old place' and not a mall or school or some other public building that homed large amounts of people.

"And you wanted to go to a _hotel_?"

"Yeah, well," Chase muttered. "We don't even know if there'll be water and electricity."

The tone quite plainly said he was not happy with how things had developed, and Foreman saw no point in agitating him any further, so the car was silent once again for the ride up to the massive driveway.

Chase got out without a word, not bothering to give the house they were at much of a second look. He wondered if Chase really had forgotten that he wasn't alone, pulling his luggage from the backseat and wandering toward the front porch stoically. Foreman followed in suit, reaching for his own luggage and politely waiting to hear the sounds of a code being punched in before he followed, but it was silent and when he looked up he saw Chase pulling something free of the gutter.

"You kept a spare key in the _gutter_?" Foreman boggled; it was a pathetic step above a fake rock.

Chase shrugged, carefully separating the key from the tape that had held it steady for ten odd years, then tossing the worn, gray tape into the bushes that surrounded the walkway.

"If I hadn't, we really would be stuck in the great outdoors," he said, unlocking and pushing the door open in one move.

A beat later and the porch was brought to life by light smearing out through the still open doorway. Foreman followed, passing plants that lined the walkway, their various stages of death emphasized by the ridiculously stylish pots they once flourished in.

Chase was rich, it'd been one of the first things Foreman had learned about him. He was rich, and he'd always _been_ rich. From his flawlessly straightened teeth down to the perfect tan he treated himself to every break, on trips to not just any Alps but _The Alps_, he couldn't be confused for anything but.

So Foreman really shouldn't have been surprised by the extravagance that waited in the Chase home; he nearly dropped his luggage. It looked more like a hotel then the hotel they had just been at; massive and expensive and generally awkward to live in. A wide, marble stairwell was the first thing to greet them, but Chase ignored it and moved right, down three steps and flicked on the light of a room that was too big to be used for anything indoors except conferences and operas. A stone fireplace took up an entire wall and could've homed a bonfire without much difficulty. The opposing wall was dark, with something flickering across the top of it -- another moment of staring and Foreman realized it was a wall of glass, displaying the moonlit ocean that was, apparently, the Chases' backyard.

"Ever get cold enough to use that?" he asked, gesturing toward the fireplace as he dropped down the steps carefully, as if the blood red carpet would sense the unworthiness in his shoes and toss him backward.

"Not that I can remember," Chase mumbled, standing in the center of the room, staring out at the beach and looking as out of place as Foreman felt.

The room was still furnished, which came as another surprise. Elaborate paintings with equally elaborate wooden frames hung from the two normal walls, chairs and small end tables sat a respectful distance away from sofas, but from what Chase had said, and especially what the layers of dust were whispering, the place had to have been empty for years.

"How long has it been since you've been here?" Foreman asked, watching him meander --aimlessly? --through the room.

"Seven years."

". . . It's been empty since?"

Chase shrugged. "My father must've come down occasionally, if he was still paying the bills," he didn't sound as though he were talking to anyone in particular, just stating a fact to hear it said.

Foreman waited before asking, "I thought he died a few months ago."

He looked at Foreman directly for the first time since getting into the rental car, snapping out of whatever trance he'd been in. "Yeah. We usually paid a few years in advance."

Foreman shook his head, wondering at the level of luxury a person would have to live in to leave a place like this for occasions, even if they were just that special. He guessed the dark red leather of the furniture was appropriately expensive, would probably cost him more than a month's salary, possibly more than a year's, and he couldn't bring himself to be outraged at the fact that they were bought probably as an afterthought, as a 'why not?' and now just sat in an abandoned, dusty house. He was too boggled by it. It was absurd.

Chase had moved to an oak end table and was pawing through its drawer without any indication of what he expected Foreman to do while he waited, so he didn't see anything wrong with meandering toward a collection of frames on the opposite table.

Two blond people stared back at him, once he wiped away an impressive sheen of dust, and looked very normal. Not at all like they belonged in a home like this. The smaller blond person, Foreman guessed was Chase, stared back with a surprised smile, and a girl with an unmistakable resemblance stood awkwardly beside him, shielding her eyes from the sun.

"Didn't know you had a sister," he decided on after a moment, placing the picture back on the end table carefully.

"That's my mum," Chase said shortly, pocketing whatever it was that he'd grabbed from the table.

"Your mom," he repeated, eyes widening, as if that would bring this picture into focus -- he was seeing it wrong; she didn't look barely seventeen.

It didn't work. The girl looked even younger by comparison when one remembered the man who he'd originally thought to be her father became a husband.

"On the second floor there's a couple guest bedrooms," Chase said instead of answering the unspoken question, passing by Foreman stiffly on his way for the stairwell. "sleep wherever."


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Notes**: Please don't try to look up what Peter has. You will probably be disappointed, because it does not exist. : ( .. As far as I know. Also, don't be a doctor while you read this. What happens probably makes little to no sense.

**Part B**: 

His mother started working full-time when he was six.

She left before he and his brother were woken to get ready for school, and came home around five in the afternoon, complaining of leg and back pain. His father then left for an additional part time, overnight shift, coming home just as his mother walked out the door, getting four good hours of sleep after sending his sons to school, and heading for his day job around ten or so.

The problem was the neighborhood, his aunt said, whenever she came to visit. She would insist on them joining her out in Minnesota, where living was cheaper, where they'd be near family, support. Talk was made every so often, but that was all it ever amounted to.

The problem was his father's boss, and this was where Foreman learned words like bigot, cracker, bastard, through a thin wall that separated his and his brother's room from angry, badly hushed conversations. Never from his father, who was too exhausted at that point to do more than toe off his shoes and slump on the bed, even if he did want to complain. It was his mother that would say things like, _quit_ and _you don't have to take this_, while his father would sigh and Eric would pretend to be asleep when his father came to wake them, never asking any questions.

The problem was his brother, who was always angry, always slamming doors and storming out in the middle of the night when Mom was just too tired, in too much pain to follow. Always in trouble, there were always meetings with the school and counselors and, later, the police.

Eric was too young to hate the cause of the problem; all he saw was the refrigerator growing more and more barren toward the end of the month, that his shoes had holes worn in the heel while his friends had five pairs of chucks that they alternated for each day of the week. He never asked about what the problem was, why he didn't receive toys still in the box on his birthday, because his mother and his father were so very tired, and obviously doing the best they could to fix it.

He knew there were people out there who lived a better life, he was surrounded by it, but it felt pointless to speculate seriously on coming up with ways of obtaining it, or ruing his parents for not providing it. It was as abstract as wishing to be a prince of his own country. That was not his life, it would never be his life.

When he was twelve, he skipped a grade and his brother went to prison for the first time. His mother quit her job and Foreman, when he bothered to think about it, figured this was because three mouths were easier to feed than four, having not noticed she was mixing up names more and more often. Getting lost in the grocery store became a regular occurrence, to-do lists were pinned everywhere, getting more and more asinine as time passed. _Turn on machine, put in clothes, add detergent (bleach for whites), close lid_, was brought along to the laundry mat, not for Foreman's benefit, but his mother who began to rely on it more and more.

Had they been living in better conditions, a trip to a doctor would've no doubt been arranged the first time she put up resistance on getting corrected-- when _'It's_ Eric_, mom,'_ received _'I'm not in the mood for games, Rodney,'_ instead of an embarrassed chuckle. It seemed impossible to handle something so serious, though, when one was putting on two pairs of socks on rainy days, instead of getting a new pair of shoes.

The fact that there was something Wrong hung heavy and dark over their home, and when his brother finally served his time, Foreman followed him back into the street, just to get away from his father's desperate silences and his mother's lists.

Problems like these; cruel bosses, paying rent, saving food for harder days, the _inability_ to get healthcare, must've seemed incomprehensible to any child living in the Chase home. Remembering objects that held value in their family -- his mother's jewelry, his grandmother's silver -- felt ridiculous when staring at a library filled with first editions, first editions that were obviously not held in any particular regard by their owner.

He'd visited luxurious homes without blinking, his own place was certainly nothing to be scoffed at, but the same unnamable quality in Chase the man that set Foreman on edge seemed to rest in Chase the home. It pulled him straight back to stained carpets, duct taped holes in windows, going to bed hungry. Nothing Foreman was ashamed of, but it definitely set a somber tone.

Maybe it was the dead feeling saturated in the very walls that made the nostalgia so strong, a sort of feeling only land marked, homes turned museums had. Places meant for touring, observing -- not living.

House would've loved it, Foreman was sure. House would've dissected everything that made the place so lifeless with masturbatory glee. It was as if the entire Chase family had called it quits at the same moment, dropping everything and not looking back. In the first room Foreman had looked in, an office of some sort, a lone book sat on a desk, open and waiting for the next page to be turned in obvious vain. The top drawer was open enough for Foreman to make out pens and pencils, highlighters. Someone had paused with the intention of resuming, and he couldn't help but wonder. Had it been forgotten, or abandoned?

Weirdness and oddities and little bits of the Chase puzzle were scattered every which way. Foreman had to _ignore_ pieces -- rooms with bold, framed art on one wall, wallpaper ripped crudely off on the other. If it was looters taking advantage of an abandoned home and _duct taped keys_, they were remarkably courteous thieves -- the kind that leave behind anything of apparent value and wait to take out their frustration on pillows and bathroom mirrors.

All the doors on the upper level were fitted with locks, but three of those locks had the latches on the outside. To keep people in, was what House would've guessed. But Foreman wasn't House and he didn't go around assuming things about people. It was entirely possible it was just a style of knob that just _looked_ like a lock -- or not, actually, once he tested it, but maybe they just enjoyed the look, but Foreman wasn't speculating, so it didn't matter.

The upstairs room Foreman picked had the luxurious bedding arrangement department stores often tried to mimic, but failed; pillows made stiff and awkward to look fluffier. Unsurprisingly, this bedding was the genuine article, with pillows that actually were that soft and despite his uneasiness, he slept peacefully.

Chase didn't. 

"Shouldn't've slept on the plane," he muttered miserably upon waking, then stumbled from one random room to another and proceeded to take a three minute shower, one that was cut short when he realized what time it was.

They'd woken later than either of them would've liked. The alarm Foreman set on his phone was for eight in the morning, but in his after-fight-desperate-for-sleep-wisdom, had lacked the foresight to adjust for the time difference.

Noises were made about picking up breakfast on the way to the hospital, but as 10:30 became 10:34, and 10:36 as they pulled into the hospital's parking lot, agreed that they could wait for a big lunch.

Blond hair was still drying as they made their way inside Chase's relative's hospitals, which Foreman was relieved to find had _walls_. Solid, oak _walls_, something the open spaces of Princeton-Plainsboro taught him never to take for granted.

Dr. Harrison was the head diagnostician and first doctor to greet them. Tall, blond and astoundingly polite. He spoke with a soft, warm confidence that could probably start saying, 'Why don't we take a walk off the third story balcony?' and you'd find yourself nodding along, if just to please him.

"It's great to finally meet you," was how he greeted Chase, shaking his hand as if it were an actual pleasure to do so. "We've heard great things, great things. We were really looking forward to your visit -- if only it was on better terms, right? And Dr. Foreman," he had turned to him, serious and grateful, and just the smallest bit eerie. "It's an honor, really, it is. Peter has had us all chasing shadows, we've been looking forward to some fresh eyes."

"Well," Foreman said, and glanced at Chase, but he was no help, looking just as disarmed as he felt. "Yes."

Dr. Harrison nodded as if he'd said something intelligent, "I assume you want to visit with Peter? Or go over some of his history?"

"A look would be nice," Foreman said, thankful for something to say, and a thick folder was put into his hands before he could finish. "Dr. Chase has been kind of tight lipped."

"Of course," Dr. Harrison said, sympathetically, and Foreman wondered how someone could manage being that sincere without imploding. "This must be difficult, your brother told me how close the two of you were."

Foreman took a quick glance at the file of Peter R. Chase, then back at the Robert one; "Brother?"

"Half brother, yeah," Chase said, shrugging once. Apparently treating one's own brother for an unnamed disorder was old hat, just not worth mentioning. Foreman had to keep this in mind, it might come in handy later.

"Very tightlipped, apparently," Dr. Harrison said with some amusement, then straight to business again. "Dr. Chase and I will tell Peter of your arrival, and you can join us when you feel caught up?"

"Sounds good," he agreed, and didn't bother to watch the two doctors disappear down the hall, delving into the folder immediately.

It was thick with a detailed history, results from various tests, notes. A suspiciously elevated SED rate was how Peter's story began, taking a surprising twist at hallucinations and a sudden fever, climaxing at a seemingly random and abrupt liver failure, followed by a sudden bout of seizures, heart difficulty, and ending in a cautious period of recovery.

Individually, the symptoms were little better than boring, but the combination was almost fascinating, and he could understand not only why House had agreed to look at it, but why Chase had been unwilling to discuss them. There was nothing hard to speculate about at this point, nothing that brainstorming would help with. The only logical steps left were retests-- which and guesses.

Lupus was tempting, but only at first, losing its appeal when one realized both steroids and immunosuppressants had slowed down exactly nothing.

That ruled out any obvious autoimmune disease, Foreman sighed, held the MRI up the light for a second look as he walked down the hall, into Peter's room.

Either a very quiet conversation abruptly halted when Foreman walked into the room, or they had been sitting in an awkward silence the entire time. Judging by Chase's rigid posture -- one didn't work shoulder to shoulder with a man for two years without learning his various postures -- the latter was entirely possible, and, more than likely.

They stared as he awkwardly replaced the MRI, and Foreman was pretty sure Peter was Chase's half-brother, but only because it would've been an absurdly complicated lie. The man propped up on the hospital bed looked too large for life; huge hands and long limbs, and not that Chase was terribly _short_, but he certainly wasn't anywhere near the exaggerated size of his brother. The most striking difference had to be the face, though. Even with the obvious wariness that hung heavily on the shoulders of any one afflicted with a serious illness, the large man looked ready to joke, and would like nothing better than to make someone else laugh.

Settled beside the bed was an older woman, who was skinny in the way that looked unhealthy and fragile but Foreman knew was entirely natural. She stood at his entrance, hugging herself defensively as she approached.

"Is this Dr. House, then?"

"Actually, I'm Dr. Foreman," he said.

"Cathrine," she said, taking Foreman's hand. Her face was long, thin and drawn and especially miserable, even for her situation. "Peter's mother. Tell me, when is Dr. House going to get here?"

Chase refused to make eye contact with anyone other than the tips of his shoes, answering stiffly. "Dr. House will be in constant contact with us while we're here--"

"So he's not coming?" Cathrine said, and Foreman wondered if it was the accent that made her seem so curt. It was the same bizarre mix that Chase's father had, except she wasn't nearly as skilled at it. Each word sounded like a fumbling battle between the two languages, and the Czech tongue was much stronger. "You said you would be able to get him to come, Robert."

"Dr. House is notoriously hands-off," Foreman said, calmly. "Trust me, you'll be getting just as much attention from him as you would if he were in the same hospital. Maybe even more."

He might as well have said, 'Please stare at me as though I am a complete and utter idiot,' because that's all she seemed able to do for about three seconds.

"What does he think then?" she said, crossing her arms. "What is his first diagnosis?"

Chase answered in a dull way he used when arguing with House and knew he wouldn't be listened to, as though he expected to be interrupted, "House wants us to approach this as though it were a blank slate--"

"Of course, all the tests he's," a wild gesture toward Peter, who looked mildly exhausted with his mother's actions, "been put through were worthless."

"Any possible changes that could've occurred since the original tests were taken could help figure out what's happening to your son," Foreman said, trying a sterner tone that usually got the less reasonable of people to listen. "The best thing for Peter would be to have the freshest information possible."

She opened her mouth undoubtedly to say something unpleasant, when Peter finally spoke up.

"Mum, it's fine. Rob knows what he's doing."

"Yes, because Robert has such a great record already," she bit out. "And this isn't _Robert_. This isn't House, like he said it would be. This is Doctor American, Doctor _Affirmative Hire_, that's what they call it?"

Barefaced racism, and Foreman was so used to underhanded, clever jibs that it took him a moment to do more than stare.

Dr. Harrison didn't have that problem, though, wincing. "Oh, I'm so sorry." 

"Excuse me?"

"Well -- you've just made us all aware of a huge person shortcoming you have, I'm assuming from how you were raised. I'm sorry, that must be _terribly_ embarrassing," Dr. Harrison said. "Don't worry, leveler heads have done nothing but praise Dr. Foreman's performance. I can assure you, it's an honor to have him here."

And that was that. Cathrine frowned tightly, Peter shifted and Chase's bangs fell forward, looking mildly ill. The man, that is -- the hair was dry now and looked as floppy and blond as ever.

"Right then," Dr. Harrison said, but it was too short to really fill the awkward silence that had settled, and every set of eyes in the room watched Foreman as he moved to the chair placed next the bed, desperate for something to distract them from the fact that they were forced to be there.

Foreman shifted and did his best to rise above the silence, the woman glaring in the corner and the man who had dragged him here, only to shrink into the opposite corner.

"So, Peter," he said, his voice bravely beating at the silence with loud, flat strokes, and staring down at the file because it was probably the safest place to look at this point. "You were twenty-four when your diabetes was diagnosed?"

"Yeah," Peter said.

"Type one," Foreman noted idly. "Doesn't normally develop that late in life."

"So we've heard," came Cathrine's voice from what was no doubt a very miserable corner of the room.

"And your first symptoms?"

"I thought you were running tests again, not having him tell to you what you could just as easily read," Cathrine said before Peter could even open his mouth.

"How about Mrs. Chase and I go over some family history again?" Harrison said, with oddly sincere cheeriness, as if the woman resembled a person more than she did an acid spitting toad.

"I didn't miss anything the first time," she insisted.

"I'd be surprised of you did," Harrison said agreeably. "But I could've overlooked a question or two, and Dr. Foreman's right, it's never a bad idea to double check."

She allowed herself to be led out the door, and Foreman couldn't tell if Harrison was a saint or idiot.

"So," Chase said, once the door closed, drawing their attention back to the man in the bed. "Your first symptom?"

"I don't know if it's important," Peter said, and both doctors leaned forward unconsciously; _the_ lucky phrase, the phrase that cracked open every case, nearly without fail, "but I switched from briefs to boxers two days before it all started happening, so everything was a little floppier than usual down there, if you know what I mean."

Chase muffled his snort badly.

"You aren't going to write that down?" Peter asked once he noticed Foreman's still hand, scarily earnest. "There's a chart on the door for how often I piss, and you're letting gold like that go?"

"I don't think we'll need notes to remember it," Foreman assured him.

"Let's go through the events that led you to getting admitted," Chase said.

"So, the first thing was the out of breath, right? I was jogging -- and flopping --"

"Yeah, we got that," Foreman said quickly.

"Right," Peter said, obviously amused at causing discomfort. "Out of breath, and started feeling lightheaded, so I scheduled the check up. They found something 'worrying' and I haven't left a hospital since."

"And you didn't notice anything out of the ordinary before going for your jog?"

"Not that -- Well," and against his better judgment, Foreman found himself leaning forward again. "They've faded now, but I started getting these weird little freckle things on my thighs a while before all this happened."

Foreman gave the file a quick glance. "You didn't mention that in the first report."

"Didn't think to. Does it mean anything?"

"We'll be looking at every angle," Chase said. "Do you remember anything distinctive about them? How could you tell they weren't just freckles?"

"They were bright red, but they didn't itch, and I could tell they weren't zits cause they were all flat," Peter said, and didn't miss the glance Foreman and Chase exchanged. "There weren't very many of them -- what does it mean?"

"It could mean nothing," Foreman said, but was sure to take note of it because it could just as easily mean everything.

"And there weren't any other symptoms you didn't think to mention?" Chase asked.

"Nothing I didn't go to the hospital for," Peter sighed. "Then . . . "

"Then your file might as well belong to five different people," Chase muttered. "Symptoms appear and disappear again for no discernable reason."

"And there was no change in routine before all this happened? No changes in diet, no new places?"

Peter shrugged. "Not especially."

"Even the not especial changes are important."

Peter was either extremely honest or manipulative, Foreman wasn't sure. He did the whole deal of raising his eyebrows and looking to the ceiling bit as he concentrated. He'd just started to speak when the door opened, and a nurse popped his head in.

"Is either of you a Dr. Foreman?"

Chase and Foreman exchanged briefed, surprised glances wondering who in Australia could possibly want anything with him. "Yeah," a Dr. Foreman said.

"You've got a call from," the nurse closed his eyes, resigning himself, "Oliver Clothesoff."

He exchanged another brief, this time unimpressed look with Chase. "Have fun," Chase said, "I've got this."

"Sure," he said, only adding, "only if Cathrine doesn't come back," once he was alone at the nursing station, lifting the phone. "This is Foreman."

"Your cell phone's off," House said, disgruntled.

"I wonder if that has anything to do with me being in a hospital," he said flatly.

"I thought I told you to call once you got in."

"I thought you were getting a hotel."

"At those prices? You could've paid some Kirks and Spocks to sleep out in the hall if you got desperate."

Foreman rolled his eyes. "We're running all the tests over again, but it doesn't look like anything we haven't seen before. Although he did mention some maculing occurred before the asthenia hit. "

"Interesting," House said, pretending to be French for no apparent reason. "How before? Weeks, hours?"

"Didn't say."

"Find out. Anything new in family history?"

"Not yet, Dr. Harrison is getting it a second time."

"As much as I admire Dr. Harrington--"

"Harrison."

"He doesn't work for me. Get it again."

Foreman raised an eyebrow. "Chase knows the history, unless you think he's hiding medically relevant information just so this whole trip can have a dramatic ending?"

"You think Chase's family is completely honest with him? Or do you think if he asks _real nicely_ they'll be honest with him now?"

Foreman thought of Cathrine's pinched face and resisted the urge to shudder. "I'll do what I can."

He took a deep breath before rounding on the woman in the sitting room, trying his best to smile before settling down beside her.

"Have Peter and Robert always been so close?"

She raised an eyebrow and blew cigarette smoke out through her teeth. "Most people start conversations with 'hello.'"

Foreman kept the smile on, but it was a marvel. "Heh, sorry."

"No. Peter did not get anywhere near Robert or his mother for a very long time. We moved here when he was five so he could be close to his father, and that's when we found out about Rowan's little girlfriend," she sneered. "It was disgusting. She was a child, not even half his age, and he looked _ridiculous_. And it's not as if she was mature, either. I was sure she'd be around for not even a year, but then she got herself pregnant. Maybe with Rowan's son, I've always doubted, but he married her anyway. I did not want Peter to interact with such a family until he was not so impressionable."

The girl in the picture had looked so . . . wholesome. But, as unreliable of a source that Cathrine was, Foreman could think of very few reasons why a girl that young would get together with someone Rowan Chase's age. Actually, only one reason. "So how old was he when you decided they could be around each other?"

"Peter started staying over his father's house when he was ten, eleven. Rowan would go off to work and that little . . ." she shook her head. "She would leave them alone in the house to go 'hang' with friends. Drink. When I found out about that, though, Peter was much older and had decided that he enjoyed keeping Robert company. I was not in a position to stop him." She took a shaky inhale of her cigarette, closing her eyes. "This whole thing is some awful joke. Rowan's gone and our Peter's last chance is _Kathleen's_ bastard son. No mother on earth deserves this."

Foreman had a feeling she was one of the closest. "I understand it can feel like a hopeless situation, but--"

"Oh please," she snorted. "We've taken him to the best doctors in the _world_, you think you and Robbie will save the day?"

"I've seen stranger things."

"Pete--"

"Just one more, alright?"

Chase's sigh was extremely put upon. "One more."

Foreman hesitated just outside the door, figuring he felt about as guilty for eavesdropping as Chase did about dragging a coworker to another continent.

"Circle jerks," Peter said, Chase groaned and Foreman blinked, "No, cause, really, you don't actually touch the other guy, so is it a sin? And maybe you're not even looking at him, he just happens to be in the room, you know?"

"_Any_ sexual encounter outside of marriage is frowned on by the church," Chase said, sounding like he'd said the same thing countless times before. "You finished?"

"Yes," Peter said. "Almost."

"You said one more--"

"I know, and this time I mean it, just _one_ more."

"If it's another question about gay sex--"

"It's not, I swear," Peter said in a tone that spoke of expecting to believed, more than actual cajoling.

"Go ahead."

"Alright, so, say you're having sex--"

"With a woman?"

"Yeah, I said no gay sex."

"You also said just one more question."

"It's like you don't trust me at all, Robbie. Anyway, so you're having sex with a woman and it turns out she's kind of a freak, and decides she wants to go exploring a little. In the back if you know--"

"Yeah, I got it."

"But instead of just using her fingers, she has an actual strap-on or whatever she wants to use. Is that a sin, to get fucked up the ass, if it's by a woman?"

"Is she your spouse?"

"Sure."

"Then you won't have sinned, but when you get to heaven you'll be forced to wear a sign around your neck that says, 'I am a massive pussy, feel free to point and mock.'"

"God is cruel."

"Tell me about it," Chase said, but Foreman could hear the smile in his voice. Now would be the best time to walk in, Foreman thought, make them aware of his presence. Familial bonding took backseat to doing their job, and it sounded logical and right in his head, but he couldn't bring himself to go toward the door.

Never mind this was probably the least helpful way Chase could be spending his time, considering.

"You want details?" Peter was saying, "Bebe is off the market."

"Bebe -- _Double D_ Bebe?"

"Double D, spread her legs for free, Bebe," Peter's sigh had layers of an unspeakable tragedy. "Now Mrs. McCormick. "

"Pete . . . I'm so sorry. You're never going to have sex again." It had been a while since he'd heard Chase sound so . . . relaxed.

After a moment of indecision, Foreman stepped back, and decided to see if he could find Dr. Harrison. There had to be something he could do to keep his hands busy.

"Your family is a trip, man," and Foreman winced inwardly. He hadn't meant for it to come out of nowhere, but a big lunch had gotten pushed back to a huge dinner, which they were both too busy shoveling food during to talk for the first five minutes. This was the first time he'd had the change to speak since leaving the hospital. Still, the case persisted, the folder open and taunting, beside a plate of chips, given occasional, lingering glances.

"I've always thought so." Chase actually seemed amused, stabbing at a large bowl of pasta. 

"Seriously," Foreman insisted. "Cathrine has issues."

There was a wad of food in Chase's cheek, and he froze, but didn't look up from his meal. "She's not normally so . . . "

"But people who get so?" Foreman shook his head, "have issues."

"Yeah," he said, swallowing thickly, and twirled his fork briefly, risking the danger of staining everything in the area red for the sake of his twitch. "I'm sorry about that."

"About what?"

"The whole . . . " Chase said uncomfortably, obviously glad to have food in front of him, to have his hands busy, now using both a fork and spoon to gather noodles. "She's a bitch."

Foreman snorted, "The only person who should be apologizing for her is herself. And maybe her mother."

Foreman ate, and Chase watched.

"What?"

"Nothing. I just," Chase shook his head, going back to his bowl. "Nothing."

"Any new ideas?" Foreman asked after a bit, nodding toward the folder.

Chase shrugged. "An infection and aggravated TKS?"

"Steroids would've sent TKS into overdrive, there's no way they would've missed that."

"His immune system was suppressed, there'd be no sign to check for it," Chase pointed out. "Blood work will tell us."

"Think we could talk them into doing a lumbar puncture?" he asked offhandedly, imagining any sensible doctor's look of shock and distaste at the mere suggestion.

Chase actually considered it. "House would."

"That's convincing."

He made a noise of amused agreement, but it sounded almost flat, and Foreman realized that would be because it was; but only when compared to the honest amusement he'd shown when talking with Peter.

"I'll give it four more days before his heart starts giving out completely," he said, suddenly quite somber, "I'll bet they'll be willing to do one then."

"Probably," Foreman said, refusing to get pulled down under. "Four days seems kind of soon, though."

"I'm an optimist."

"Refills?" an extraordinarily chipper voice asked, just moments before an extraordinarily chipper young lady appeared.

Foreman nodded, and their empty cups vanished quickly in her best impression of Please Leave Me A Good Tip, or maybe just, I'm Still Sorry For Carding Your Friend When You Ordered Alcohol.

"You drank all that?" Chase asked, sounding scandalized.

"So did you."

"Yeah, but I want to get buzzed," Chase said. "You drank it for . . . enjoyment, I'm guessing?"

"It's not that bad."

Chase stared at Foreman for a moment. "I would honestly not be surprised if she was taking those cups into the bathroom and squatting--"

"You're the first two I've ever seen ask for refills on these!" Chipper Voice returned, placing their drinks on the table and chipper as ever in the face of the charming smile Chase plastered on.

"Then why do you still carry it?" Chase asked, taking a sip and looking, now that Foreman was actually paying attention, remarkably pained.

Chipper Voice rolled her eyes, "It's from a local brewery, one that my boss's sister just happens to run. We tried to fix it up some, but most people still can't stand it."

Foreman ignored Chase's pointed look, "I think we're ready for our checks."

And Chipper Voice took off. Chase shifted, grabbing his coat from the other end of the booth, "You willing to go look for a hotel with actual room?"

"I already checked around," Foreman said, and at Chase's puzzled look, "at the hospital, I called around."

Chase blinked. "You -- that's what you were doing at the hospital? When I couldn't find you? You were on the phone?" It wasn't accusatory at all, but he was certainly disarmed.

"As opposed to what?" Foreman asked blandly. "Grabbing Peter's shoulders and _shaking_ out whatever's wrong with him?"

And Chase's expression said, why yes, he had expected him to do just that.

It was an odd moment. He hadn't hidden the fact that he chose Foreman because he was the best choice, but Foreman hadn't really bothered to think about what that meant: Chase was pinning his hope on Foreman, wholly and utterly. He was putting his faith in the fact that Foreman was smart, and he worked hard, and he did whatever he could.

Foreman had never thought of himself as infallible, so he'd never really had to come to terms with making a mistake -- it was always a possibility, each choice he made was fifty-fifty. It was odd, to see someone else swallowing that. Not only swallowing it, but obviously finding the taste of it bitter. It was something he supposed he should've been used to by now, working with patients and families that depended on him, but he wasn't often chosen to deliver bad news to people with clenched hands in waiting rooms.

"I did all I could today," Foreman said firmly and Chase nodded immediately, of course, it would be ridiculous to think otherwise. But the revelation he'd had was obviously still there, firm, and Foreman wasn't sure why he felt guilty about it.

Chase had downed both their drinks by the time the checks arrived, and didn't put up any protest when Foreman took the keys, just in case.

Chase slept like a child, splayed across the bed, shifting and occasionally sighing, as if this whole sleeping business was harder than previously anticipated. Also like a child, he resisted getting up.

"You can't always be like this," Foreman said, leaning on the wall on the outside of the bathroom as Chase shaved hurriedly. "You're usually the first one in the office."

"It's the middle of the night for me," Chase protested, slightly muffled, and a peak in the room revealed him working on particularly delicate areas of neck. "And you. So you're the freak, here."

Foreman didn't respond, as the mild jibe wasn't nearly as interesting as staring at Chase's bare upper body, which was a fascinating mix of strength and fragility; muscles were there, certainly, but they were smooth and unimposing. Slender. He was a very slender man, and there was almost a boyish quality to his narrow chest, but it was obviously there to stay. Maybe it was the fact that he didn't often appreciate other men's chest that made Chase's seem so appealing.

He wasn't sure how a throat clearing could sound accented, but Chase managed it, and Foreman glanced up to see Chase's amused expression, briefly giving Foreman a once over in return.

The staring contest was broke by Chase, turning on the faucet and running the razor under the tap. "Hand me my bag?"

The bag laid just behind Foreman's feet and was easy enough to hoist in the wide, marble counter, and before he could think of leaving to give Chase privacy, the paler man zipped it open, and Foreman's mouth fell open, just a bit.

"What?" he asked, digging through the mess of clothes, yanking out a tie that reminded Foreman of a particularly messy surgery, jerking twice to free it of various hangers-ons.

Foreman closed his eyes. "You just shoved everything in there."

Chase stared blankly. "So?"

Foreman was speechless. Each article of clothing was sloppily, individually balled up and shoved in every available cranny of Chase's duffle bag, disorganized and chaotic. "Have you ever heard of folding? You can't wear this!" Foreman declared, lifting a random ball of cloth, shaking it out twice to get it to regain a recognizable shape, and even then with all the creases and wrinkles, it looked more like a caricature of a button up shirt, scribbled out by a child with an unsteady hand.

"I'll have a jacket on," Chase protested, grabbing said shirt out of Foreman's hands and slipping it on, working the buttons from the bottom up.

"You didn't wear something from this yesterday, did you?" he asked, wondering how he could've possibly missed it.

"We were late, I wore what I did on the plane," he muttered, finishing the top two buttons. He winced at the crinkled mess, winced a little more when smoothing it down just made it worse. "This isn't going to work, is it?"

"That depends on your definition of work," Foreman shook his head. "You -- hold on."

The way Foreman's shirt hung on Chase's frame could've been a stylistic choice, if one was trying to bring to mind pirates and frontiersmen. The collar was low on his throat, the cuffs ending near his first knuckle, but it was infidelity better than anything he had.

"You wore this yesterday?" he asked, buttoning the cuffs as they trooped down the stairs and out the door. "It smells like you."

"Sorry," Foreman said, but didn't bother to hide that that was a lie. Chase was more than welcome to go back upstairs to his mess of luggage--

"No, not -- it doesn't _stink_." He was blushing, ducking his head as he climbed in the car. "Never mind."

--He swallowed down any blatant smug, and tried not to sit too comfortably on the way to the hospital.

"All the blood work should be done," Chase speculated as they pulled into the hospital.

"Should," Foreman agreed. "We'll probably have to wait for the MRI results, though, which will be more helpful."

"You're hoping Peter has a tumor so small every specialist in Australia missed it?" He sounded more tired than skeptical.

"I'm hoping it's grown in size since the two weeks the last MRI was taken."

The comment was apparently worth a shrug and a cock of the head, but not much else.

He made a show of parking, slowly turning, and pausing before he took the car out of gear, leaning back in the seat and closing his eyes.

"Maybe Cathrine stayed home today," he said flatly.

"Maybe Cathrine got hit by a truck today," Foreman suggested brightly and Chase snorted.

Sadly, Cathrine hadn't done either; she sat miserably in the waiting area, practically pouncing on the two of them when they exited the elevator, demanding the results of various tests that they had no information on. Dr. Harrison was quick to bat her away, however, ushering the two of them into a lounge.

"No changes," Dr. Harrison said. "we should have him prepped for some of the blood work in a few hours, if you want to observe."

"Any results we can look at now?" Foreman asked, and Dr. Harrison's head cocked slightly to the side.

"Pardon?"

"The results of the tests you ran last night?" Chase asked.

Dr. Harrison eyed the two of them slowly, "I don't know how fast you work in the states, but I had to pull strings to get Peter scheduled this soon. And the results of today's work won't be ready for a week, at least."

"In that case, schedule a lumbar puncture now, cause he'll need it in a few days anyway."

"We're doing what we can. If he does become a high risk, he'll get priority. Until then, we'll just have to be patient," Dr. Harrison said. Foreman wondered how the same accent could make one man so dignified, and another's words simply rounded off and child-safe. The older doctor nodded his goodbye, drifting down the hall.

"You don't have _anything_?" House actually sounded near tears. But Foreman decided to discard this as evidence for his humanity; the tears were closer to disgusted, I-Can't-Believe-It tears more than any actual human emotion.

"We can't run the tests, House, we're not licensed here. All we can do is give input and ask pretty please, so they probably haven't put any importance on our results."

House either sighed or growled, it was hard to tell with the reception.

A moment of complete silence later, Foreman checked the call's status and discovered House had either hung up, or the Cell Phone Gods had frowned upon him.

"What'd House say?" Chase asked, settling down beside him with two muffins. One he started picking the wrapper off the bottom, and the second drifted closer to Foreman than not.

"You'll have to ask Cameron, cause he hung up on me," Foreman said, trading his phone for the muffin.

"So we have a day of thumb-twiddling."

"Or," Chase suggested, "We could go look through Peter's home, his pub."

"_His_ pub? As in, his own pub?"

"He's been working there for the past fifteen years. The guy who owned it died a while back, left it to Pete," Chase explained, already going for his keys. "I could go, you could stay and observe."

"As charming as Cathrine is, I think I'll pass."

They were already driving off the hospital property when Foreman's phone rang.

"The results will be in tomorrow," House said, because 'hello' is just boring. "How about you do something useful with the thousands of dollars it took to fly you both down there and look around his home and work?"

"Already on our way," Foreman said. Silence. Foreman's brow creased -- they were still connected. "Hello?"

"I- I'm just so proud," House said. "You work so hard, moments like these make it all worthwhile."

"Goodbye, House."

"What?" Chase asked, indicating he could tell the difference between normal Foreman and not impressed Foreman.

"Just House."

Peter's apartment came as something of a shock after the splendor of Chase's.

"That was my father's home," Chase corrected irritably. "He didn't pay for any of his kid's places."

Foreman wanted to say, 'it shows,' but he really wasn't House and had some self control. In any case, it was cozy at best. Small, somewhat messy, and it reminded Foreman of a dorm or frat house, there was nothing of real value of substance. Posters hung on walls with tacks, a stack of DVDs beside an impressive television, a stained sofa, and clothes. Clothes were everywhere, left to fend for themselves and Foreman had a disturbing image of Peter simply shedding his pants, as soon as the mood hit him.

Surprisingly, and thankfully, the kitchen was spotless, dishes stacked neatly in the cabinets. "I don't think he's touched these since I helped him moved in," Chase laughed, swiping at a top plate, his finger coming back gray and dust-covered.

"I don't think we'll find anything," Foreman said, emerging from an equally suspiciously clean bedroom. "It doesn't even look like he lived here. He definitely didn't eat or sleep here."

Chase nodded, kicking a pair of shorts from the middle of the hallway to the side, "I'm pretty sure the only reason he bothers to come back here at all is because that's where his clothes are." He said this in an amused, almost proud tone, and Foreman couldn't fault him. _His_ older brother, for all his stupid, awful mistakes, was still the coolest person in the world in some corner of his mind, too.

"Think he's been living with a girlfriend?" Foreman asked, taking a quick peek in the bathroom, just to make sure. Barren. Not even a toothbrush.

"Not that I'm aware of, but that doesn't mean much."

"We can ask around at the bar," said he, and it was about a two minute walk to Pete's Pub.

The wood work of the sign was either homemade or an extremely expensive imitation of homemade, the _e_s awkward and each letter nailed individually above the single, plain door, that turned out to be made of thick metal and clanged shut obnoxiously loud behind them.

All one of the pub's inhabitants stood sharp at the noise, her ponytail flopping around her neck as she swung around to see them. The young woman relaxed almost immediately at the sight of two strange men wandering in, and Foreman couldn't help but wonder she'd been expecting if that was a comfort. "Sorry mates, it's not open till four," she said, her accent thick and almost undecipherable, "come back in an hour, it's lady's night."

"Actually," Foreman said, when Chase gave no indication he was going to, "we're here to talk to someone about Peter Chase."

"You aren't cops," she said, approaching, shifting a tray half filled with dishware that had looked so at home propped on her hip that Foreman hadn't noticed she was even carrying it until she set it aside.

"No," agreed Chase, "we're his doctors. And I'm Robert, Peter's brother." Foreman really shouldn't've been surprised at the introduction; he'd had enough warning that Chase was Robert. It was still odd to hear.

"Kathy's boy?" said the woman, sticking her arm out with a smile. "I'm Wendy, I'm in charge until you all get Pete on his feet again. You're?"

"Eric Foreman," said Eric Foreman, and was mildly thankful they weren't going anywhere soon where he'd be known as Charlotte's boy.

"Pleasure," Wendy said, and lifted the tray back onto her hip, "You had some questions? I was here the last time Peter was --sorry, I gotta take these to the back -- but I don't know what help I'll be."

They followed her into a narrow, well used kitchen. "Any new people food, places. He talk about a new girlfriend?" Foreman asked, sidestepping pots that dangled over a metal stove, into the walkway.

"You guys don't have any ideas yet?" Wendy asked. "It's been a month, hasn't it?"

"Well, we literally just got in, hit the ground running," Chase said.

"They sent away for you? So this is really serious?" she said. "Um, no, no new girlies, no new hangouts, and I'd know. He wasn't exactly quiet about his personal life. He was perfectly fine last time I saw him, too. I was sure he was faking."

"How about you walk us through Peter's last day here, and then maybe we can have a look around?"

"Not for too long," she said, the first sign of wariness in the two strange men she had just met. "Pete's last day. Let's see, he came in at two, to help opening. Went to the back to fix some of stools. Spent the rest of the time in his office, testing Norville's new batch of junk for the bar."

"Norville's?" Foreman asked, at the same time Chase asked, "Junk?"

"Do you have any of it around?"

"It tasted like shit, so probably not. Hold on," Wendy turned and screamed, "_Leo!_ See if we got any of that Norville shit in the back!" Chase climbed down from the ceiling as Leo, presumably, hollered back a presumed, 'alright!' and Wendy stacked cups, shaking her head. "It's made of all this all-natural stuff, and this local brewery tries to sell it to the local pubs. It always tastes like piss, but Peter always gives them their shot. Tests out each flavor before turning them straight down."

They exchanged a glance. "You wouldn't know if they serve the same stuff at Doyles?"

"I would have no idea," Wendy said. "Sorry."

"None of it in the back," Presumably Leo said while passing by the kitchen entrance, heaving a table from the presumed back. "Could always check Pete's office, though, I think he was tasting some last time he was in."

"His office is the down that hall, last door on the right, help yourself," she said. " If you have any other questions, I'm here."

If Peter wasn't living at home, he certainly wasn't living at his office. There was a fairly cluttered desk and a trash can, and that was about it. There were remnants of fast-food from long ago, but not the trash heap he'd been expecting.

"It can't be the same stuff," Foreman said, going for the desk. "We'd been showing symptoms, too."

"Peter could've gotten his hands on a bad batch," said Chase, drifting toward a closet Foreman hadn't noticed at first.

"Tox screen didn't show any contaminants," Foreman pointed out, opening drawers and discovering things as devious as pens and notepads.

"Maybe they didn't test for it."

"They've tested," Foreman jerked the bottom, and largest, drawer open with a mighty pull. "For everything under the sun."

"Have not," Chase said with false petulance, in the voice he sometimes used to mimic a grumpy Cameron as he went through jacket pockets. "They've tested for everything _reasonable_ under the sun."

"Oh, yeah, sorry. I should've made it clear I didn't think they were testing for beach balls," Foreman said, and when it took longer than a beat for Chase to respond, looked up from the desk.

He had his cell phone to his ear, brow creasing. "Chase."

"House?" Foreman guessed, thankful he'd finally found Chase's number.

Chase went white, gripping the phone tighter, "Oh. Thanks for calling."

Not House, then. "What?"

"Good news," he said, but it was not in the traditional 'happy' tone that usually occupied such news. "Dr. Harrison is scheduling that lumbar puncture."

"Peter's heart --"

"Has three days, at best." Chase's lips were a thin, tense line. 

"You knew it was gonna happen," Foreman said after a moment. "Just sooner. This is good. Faster tests, right?"

"Yeah," Chase said, but Foreman was pretty sure he didn't agree. He looked like he wasn't quite sure what to do with his hands, eventually tucking his phone away in his back pocket, and Foreman was abruptly aware of how quiet it was. The distant sound of something heavy hitting the ground drifted in, then Wendy and Leo laughing hysterically.

"You go visit Peter. I'll finish up here," Foreman said, and when Chase opened his mouth to protest, "I can call a cab."

"I can stand around there looking worried or I can continue to be doing something useful," he said shortly.

Foreman tried to meet Chase's gaze but he refused, the latter staying as firm as he could, eventually crossing his arms. It wasn't often he went head-to-head in an argument, and he obviously wasn't sure how to brace himself for it, so Foreman struck before he could get it together, "You're going to go to the hospital, sit with your brother and keep House and me updated. I probably won't be long here anyway."

Chase looked like he was about to argue, his expression tense, but painfully young, emphasized by the oversized shirt. Something in Foreman's own expression must've convinced him it wasn't worth it because he shook his head, leaving the room without another word.

When Foreman arrived at the hospital, he found Chase sitting beside Peter's unconscious body, feet hooked under the chair, elbows on his knees.

"Find anything?" he asked without looking up, obviously expecting a no.

Foreman didn't disappoint. "Nothing. Any changes?"

"Yeah, Pete stood up and walked out an hour ago, just fine."

"Ah," Foreman said, taking the neighboring seat. "House'll be disappointed, considering he doesn't believe in God and all."

Chase didn't respond, eyes trained on not Peter, but the heart monitor beside his bed, the constant green spikes that were destined to die out, flat line. Unless he came up with something to stop it.

Foreman was about to suggest going to get Dr. Harrison, harassing him until the results were in or they were allowed to run them themselves, when Chase started talking, abruptly, as if Foreman had asked a question and it had just been hanging awkwardly.

"When my mum died," he said, "everyone kept saying how it expected it was. How they saw it coming. And I kept agreeing, but honestly, I always just assumed she'd get better, it was just taking a while. I never gave up on her, I couldn't. I should've seen it coming," he paused for a moment, and the heart monitor kept going. "I don't know . . . what should I do? Should I be giving up?"

"No one's saying anything about giving up," Foreman said, wondering when he became Cameron. "We've pulled people back from much further away than this."

"House has," Chase said, still not looking anywhere but the heart monitor. "House isn't here."

"When has he ever needed to see a patient?"

"He has three days."

"I had thirty-six hours."

"So you don't think I should be letting go?" Chase asked, actually making eye contact for the first time Foreman could remember in a long while.

He looked at his face, open and honest and so entirely removed from the House Jr. Foreman had been so desperate to dominate and fuck into the mattress, he wondered if what he saw before had ever actually been there, and he couldn't do anything but lie shamelessly. "No." 

He didn't feel guilty. There was no reason to feel guilty, really, not yet. And, if there was a God who took a sudden liking to Peter, he might not even have to. As it was, Chase apparently trusted his opinion enough to pull himself together, follow Foreman down to the hospital's cafeteria for lunch.

"So TKS is off the table," Foreman started, barely got it out before Chase snorted.

"This is classic TKS, it's just angry, grumpy TKS."

"I didn't see any bacteria spewing fly traps in his home or work, did you?" Foreman asked.

"I think we've established that Peter was rarely _at_ his home or office," he said, and was about to go on when his phone buzzed energetically on the table. He flipped it open, saying, rather blandly, "none of the results are in. The LP will be back tomorrow."

Foreman could make out three very distinct and rude words from the other side of the table, but Chase didn't blink.

"Yeah, apparently, in normal hospitals -- you know, the kind where cane-wielding psychopaths don't have blackmail material on every staff member? An LP takes about a day to schedule, even if it's a rush." Chase eyed his fingernails for a moment, glanced up at the clouds and pointed one out to Foreman that looked particularly giraffe shaped, and Foreman had to agree. Finally, House paused long enough for Chase to say, "I've got another call."

"I don't think there's --" Foreman blinked, "you actually have another call?"

Chase answered with, "Chase. You -- really? Ace, perfect. Thank you. I'll be right there. Thank you." Chase stood, grabbing his coat and forgetting his salad, "They found the cases of Norville's Peter was drinking."

"I thought we agreed that was a long shot?"

"It's the only shot we have right now," Chase said. "Can't hurt to check it out. I'll grab them, you get Dr. Harrison to let us use the lab."

"We aren't licensed--"

"I'm not licensed to treat alcohol in any country. I think it'll just be a matter of lab equipment."

Foreman watched him take off, then shrugged to no one.

It couldn't hurt.

Dr. Harrison was more than happy to allow them full access to the lab, observing for about a half hour and two of the bottles before getting called away. 

"Think this is the same stuff as Doyles?" Chase asked, watching the machine spin.

"No idea," Foreman said. "I hope so, for the sake of everyone in this area, if they're both as horrible as they say."

Chase eyed one of the bottles that had been given a clean bill of health. "There's nothing in this for flavoring," he said, sounding mystified, staring at the ingredients.

"They did say it tasted like crap -- Did you just take a sip of that?"

Chase was shuddering. "Ugh, God. My _tongue_. It's like someone just pissed into a bottle. Worse than Doyles, easy." He held it out to Foreman, "here, you'll love it."

Foreman was not impressed.

"No, I'm serious. Give it a try."

"Take a sip of something we were just testing for possible mutagens and contaminations?"

"And it came back negative. This is probably the safest drink in Australia."

Foreman eyed the progress of the current bottle and shrugged, taking the beer and a tentative sip.

"This -- it's pretty good, what are you talking about?" Foreman asked, and going ahead to take another, larger gulp.

"Tastes just like that Fosters crap, doesn't it?" Chase said, licking at the edge of his lip and wincing at the taste he found there. Foreman tracked the movement, not bothering to hide it. Chase's lips weren't _especially_ lush, but they were still lush, and they _were_ especially pink, a shade that women all over the globe tried to duplicate. They would've been something of a joke, on any other man's face, Foreman was sure. But it fit, in a sickeningly attractive way, they sat pretty on Chase's face.

"We're not drunk," Chase's lips warned, and Foreman shifted his gaze upward, to pale, knowing eyes.

He was suddenly very aware of how charged the silence had become as he stared, and the very, very short distance between their thighs, shoulders. "Yeah."

"We're not even buzzed," Chase said, lips perking upward fearlessly, and it made a ridiculous sort of sense that _this_ was the thing he could face, head on.

"Yeah," Foreman said, and could feel Chase's thigh flex next to his, the warmth fading then returning just as fast, the slight brush of the pant leg against his own. "I'm okay with that. You?"

Chase's eyebrows said, in a very non-impressed. "Hello?"

"How many bottles left?" Foreman asked.

"Three, counting this one."

Thirty minutes.

He could wait thirty minutes.

"Just -- we're almost to the door--"

Three bottles given a clean bill of health, a hasty ride to their temporary place, a few rushed steps and they _were_ at the door. Chase's back, especially, was becoming very intimate with said door.

"Jesus," he panted when Foreman finally released his mouth, just to start on his neck. "How long have you been holding that in?"

Truthfully, it probably started after 'oops' and the attempt to button up a shirt when there weren't enough buttons to be found. But that was more of a reflex, as a Foreman wasn't anyone's _oops_. More recently, it was probably after seeing Chase in his shirt. "Thirty minutes," Foreman muttered, which was also true, moving a hand from Chase's hip and to the doorknob, rolling them both in.

They stumbled up the stairs, to the room Foreman had been sleeping in, shoes and ties abandoning this madness along the way.

Foreman had just unbuttoned his own shirt from Chase's frame, and was working on pulling the tight, white one beneath over his head when one of their cell phones began singing for attention. The lips against Foreman's hesitated, drifting away, and the whole bed moved with Chase's wild gropes for his phone.

"Don't. Do _not_ answer it," Foreman said.

"Don't be stupid" said Chase's expression. Then, out loud and hopefully, "It's House," he said. "Chase." He batted halfheartedly at Foreman's hands, which weren't about to let a measly phone call cancel their exploration of what could be hiding beneath Chase's belt. "You brought in my mail? . . . No, of course. A proper family history would've been remiss if you didn't go through the personal belongings of someone who hasn't been in contact with your patient for over _twelve years_." Foreman idly wondered where he'd learned to keep his voice so steady as he bent to work on Chase's throat. "I obviously like the painting, I have it on my wall . . . no. Nothing. You don't have any . . . yeah, he's right here."

Foreman took the offered phone, easily overwhelming the other man's attempts to get up with a well placed weight shift. One didn't live the streets without learning a few good ways to keep a man down. "You have to see this painting. It speaks layers. And that's just about the person who would want it in their home." House's voice was one of the most unwelcome things he'd heard in quite some time.

"My hands are kind of full at the moment, House," Foreman said, smirking as he groped Chase firmly through his slacks, and the blond barely stifled a gasp, biting down on his own wrist. "If you want to make fun of Chase's decorating skills, I can clear up my schedule as soon as we get back."

"And I'll hold you to that. But seriously, you should see some of these websites Chase has found--"

"You're going through Chase's computer?" Foreman repeated, and felt Chase stiffen beneath him. "Did you have anything useful to share?"

"Yeah, and I'm pretty sure he could be arrested for at least half --"

Chase nabbed the phone from his ear; "House -- What? . . . No. Like you don't. Are you even -- No. . . . _No_!" He scowled, hanging up the phone and tossing it on the nightstand. "He hung up on me," he felt the need to add.

"About time," Foreman muttered, and got back to the task at hand.

"If he had something to say about Peter--"

"Then he would've said it," Foreman assured him. "Or called back."

Foreman's phone sprang to life. He looked upward, but reached for it, lifting his lips until they just brushed against Chase's chest as he answered. "Foreman."

Chase squirmed pleasantly beneath him, giving a fascinating moan when Foreman bit down on a pink nipple just for the heck of it, hips thrusting upward, disparate for friction.

"Since you're so terribly busy, I'll keep this short," House said.

"Thanks," Foreman said, and began making his way down Chase's smooth chest, sucking sharply on the fragile skin. A trail of red markings proclaimed 'Foreman was here' on the near pure white skin, and he felt darkly pleased with this fact, unable to stop himself from giving a particularly vicious bite against a jutted hip, and was forced to reach up to clamp a hand down on Chase's mouth to smoother his sharp cry.

"Chase's eyebrows are dark blond. You ever notice that?" House asked, tone suddenly quite serious.

"Huh?" Foreman asked, glancing up to check, but Chase's hand was thrown back and all he could see was his throat. "Sure."

"Know what I heard?"

"I thought you were going to keep this short," Foreman said, pulling down Chase's boxers and slacks in one move.

"I am, you just keep interrupting me," House said. "I heard that a Aussie's eyebrows are always the same color as his hair down there," Foreman forgot to breathe, just for a second. "Tell me, Foreman, is that true?"

"What are you talking about?" Foreman asked, praying his voice kept steady.

"I'd ask Cameron, but I don't think her memory will be as good as your view right now. So? Do the cuffs match the collar?" House asked, and when Foreman didn't answer, chuckled darkly. "I didn't see it coming, honestly. I mean, I knew Chase would be all for it. But Foreman, I thought you were straight."

"What? Is it about Peter?" Chase asked, shrugging Foreman's hand away and sitting up. Foreman glanced back up, and his face must've shown absolute horror because Chase started grabbing for the phone. He quickly swatted the hand away.

"I guess if a guy's pretty enough, it doesn't really matter," House continued. "You like holding him down as you fuck him? I'll bet he likes that -- or have you not gotten that far yet?"

Foreman swallowed. "Not -- no."

"Good. Hey, could you do me a favor while you're down there? Check Chase's thigh."

Methodically, he ignored Chase's confused stare and continued his earlier task, pulling pants down pale legs to pale knees. Chase gave him a look when Foreman lifted his leg, but allowed it.

A collection of tiny red dots freckled on the skin.

"Fuck."

"_What_?" Chase asked, eyes wide, trying to bend to see.

"That's what I thought," House said, and Foreman knew the man too well to be surprised by the underlying smugness in the tone. "Get Chase checked in. I'll be there in about four hours."

" . . . You're on a plane?"

"I thought he was at my place?" Chase asked with remarkable patience, gripping his own knee tightly and Foreman knew he must've seen the macules.

"As I have been for the past twelve hours. I went to Chase's place, like, an hour after you two left."

"Did-- is Cameron--"

"Cameron's back in Jersey. So far your secret life of plowing Chase is only known by you and me. And Chase. You told Chase, right?"

"We'll meet you at the hospital," Foreman said, and closed the phone.

'_BUMBUMBUUUUUUMMMMMMM!_' said the writer! APOLOGIES that this took so long. :x The next part will be up in less than a month, I promise. But it will probably be shorter. But it will TOTALLY be sexier. :D The next part is totally No Children Under 17 Admitted. Totally.

AND for FFN readers: I will probably end up cutting the porns, and putting a link to my ficjournal instead. :3


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